YOUNG GROUNDBREAKERS ( back row L-R ) District superintendent
Alan Bersin , founding principal Dr . Doris
Alvarez , Chancellor Robert C . Dynes , donors Peggy and Peter Preuss , MA ’ 67 , and Marshall College Provost Cecil Lytle help a crew of students dig into the site of The Preuss School UC San Diego in 1998 .
Twenty years after that rain- and tear-soaked morning , the Preuss School has rewarded those first parents ’ trust . Preuss students have demonstrated that they , many of them immigrants , all from low-income families and whose parents have not attended college , can achieve academically as well as any student population in the country . A rigorous college-focused curriculum prepares students to thrive in college , and each year more than 90 percent of its graduates are accepted at a four-year college . Eighty-two percent of graduates enroll in UC or Cal State ; about a third will come to UC San Diego this year . It ’ s been called one of the most challenging high schools in the country ; Newsweek named it the top transformative school three years in a row . And it is here on campus , changing the lives of all those who pass through , who in turn change the lives of others .
Prop 209 showed the need “ We looked at the university as a social engine ,” says Lytle , Preuss ’ co-founder and champion . “ Universities have always been that .” In 1996 , the University of California badly needed a social engine . California voters had passed Prop 209 that year , which amended the state constitution to prohibit state institutions from considering race , sex or ethnicity in public employment , contracting and public education . UC Regents likewise ruled that race and ethnicity could no longer be used in admissions decisions . African American undergraduate enrollment at UC campuses dropped by 33 percent ; Hispanic enrollment fell 16 percent .
Lytle argued that a college preparatory school for underserved students , located on UC San Diego ’ s campus , would
make a powerful statement that these students were welcome at the University of California . He envisioned the school as a laboratory : just as UC ’ s agricultural stations developed innovative agricultural practices , Preuss could be a lab for developing educational best practices for urban schools .
With support from the Office of the President and the San Diego community , Lytle and his collaborators persuaded the Faculty Senate to approve the new school . It was founded in 1998 and chartered through San Diego Unified School District . UC San Diego provided land , but no funds to build or equip a school . One of the university ’ s first graduates , Peter Preuss , MA ’ 67 , with his wife , Peggy , made the founding gift of $ 5 million toward construction of the new school . The balance of $ 9 million was raised in less than six months , and the new Preuss School buildings opened on east campus in the fall of 2000 .
Looking back , Lytle says , “ My one disappointment is that we didn ’ t build 10 of them .”
WORTH THE TRIP Each day , more than 800 Preuss students are brought to campus from all across San Diego County , often traveling over an hour each way .
Giving back , paying forward Jacqueline Kennedy ’ 08 rode the bus that rainy morning , and in 2004 she was part of Preuss ’ first graduating class . She remembers her teachers and mentors with stories of the ways they widened her world , from learning to write papers to her first time eating sushi . “ My time at Preuss was a true awakening of how inequitable the world is and how you have to work hard just to get to the starting line .
34 TRITON | FALL 2018